Mostly Mindful

Chiapas Sage

April 23, 2018. Yesterday, a poem I read sent me searching through old photographs looking for a specific dress worn in high school. I found it! But only in black and white. The memories, like the trigger for this search, are yellow. Vivid yellow. Same yellow as the Chiapas sage in my yard, which I resolved to let stand-in for the dress. When I found the photograph, I decided to layer dress and blooms – hence the strange collage.

This morning I opened Word-Of-The-Day to Cathexis (Analyst perspective) — investing psychic or emotional energy in a person, object, or idea. I certainly have these past 24 hours! Cathexis (Poet perspective) — holding onto associations, such as with a color (perhaps yellow).

This poem is a mindful reflection on the significance of simple things, like a dress, in defining memories – and likely spreading associations to future encounters.

January 6, 2016. Central Texas has yet to have a hard freeze this winter (in spite of ice and snow in other parts of the state a week ago!) Today I was observing the Chiapas sage, a Fall bloomer that just keeps blooming and blooming until a freeze sends it into dormancy. I’m not sure what a shorter dormant period may mean for next year’s blooms, but I am comforted by the cheery yellow profusion that brightens this grey day. And I think: How wise – I, too, should give my all right now rather than fret about what lies ahead. So, here’s the poem that followed.

The image is a composite – sage photographed today, birds from prior photos. (No way to coerce dove and blue-jay to resume positions and hold a pose while I steadied the camera!)